Tea Catering Review: Afternoon Tea from Teatopia in Northern Virginia
Afternoon tea days are my absolute favorite days. If you’re making everything yourself though, they’re also extremely exhausting. I’m fortunate to be married to someone who loves baking and shares my enthusiasm for all things afternoon tea. We generally split the tiers (I make savories, he makes scones, and we split the desserts). However, with an enthusiastic baking husband comes the desire to be ambitious… like making your own sandwich bread for tea sandwiches.
This is one of the reasons why I personally love visiting tea rooms. We can experience all the joys and delicacies of afternoon tea without having to do any of the preparation, washing the dishes, or even thinking about attempting homemade puff pastry (Don’t think about it, Xak!).
As much as I love tea rooms, I really do love having tea at home the most. It’s comfortable, there’s no time limit, and I can choose to follow (or not follow) whatever etiquette rules I want. That’s why I was quite interested when I learned about Teatopia.
Earlier this year, I was contacted by Yvonne, the owner of a new Northern Virginia based afternoon tea catering company called Teatopia. Yvonne had read some of our tea time adventures on the blog and wanted to hear our input and feedback on her offerings.
I’ve never had tea catering before and truthfully I had never really considered it. After all, Xak and I enjoy making our own afternoon teas. However, I was extremely intrigued at the thought of having afternoon tea prepared by someone else while I enjoyed it in my own home. This seemed like the best of both worlds. I could use my favorite tea set, wear my home clothes, put on my own music or watch a movie, but the absolute best thing was not having to worry about cleaning a single baking sheet or mixing bowl!
I replied immediately and said, yes please! 😄
We arranged for our catered tea party to take place on April 6, 2025.
A Note from Dani: We received a complementary Cake Away experience in order to provide feedback, however we did not receive any compensation for our review. All thoughts are our own.
About Teatopia
Teatopia is an afternoon tea catering company serving tea lovers all around the DC Metro area. Yvonne, the owner, is a serious afternoon tea aficionado and while she began her company in 2025, she is no stranger to the wonders of afternoon tea.
Teatopia (literally) caters to everyone, regardless of if you’re two afternoon tea loving people (hi!) or if you’re trying to host a tea party for a large event. In addition, you can book a free consultation to learn more and also experience Teatopia through popup events, which are announced and available for purchase on the website.
the Ordering Process
There are three distinct experiences available depending on your needs. There is also a delivery surcharge which varies depending on your location. Make sure to check the website for the most up to date pricing and offerings.
The Cake Away Experience
This is perfect for people (like Xak and me) who want to just eat. Everything you need to have your own private tea party is delivered to you. This includes the loose leaf tea (you choose the flavor), food for every tier including the sandwiches you select, even sugar cubes, napkins, and silverware. You’ll need to provide your own dishes, milk (to put in your tea), and hot water to brew your tea.
Full Service
As the name suggests, this option provides everything… including the dishes. Food and china are delivered and set up by an event coordinator. When your party is finished, a Teatopia representative will even return to pick up the dishes (you don’t have to wash them). This is great for larger parties and for those of us who don’t like washing dishes. 😊
Bespoke Tea
The final level of service is for customers who have a vision or theme and want to see it come to life. This is for those who want a completely custom event paired with a beautiful tablescape.
All orders are handled on the Teatopia website. When placing an order, the customer provides the following information:
- the desired experience/level of service
- the date/time for delivery
- Sandwich Flavor selections
- Tea flavor selections
- Any dietary considerations (ex. Vegetarian, gluten free)
- Any add-ons (ex. A tea infuser)
For our order, we chose the Cake Away experience for Sunday, April 6, 2025. Our tea selections were Earl Grey and Assam. Since we didn’t have any special dietary needs, I was open to whatever sandwich flavors were selected by the chef (Yvonne), as long as it included a sausage roll!
I was asked to provide a 2 hour delivery window (I chose 12-2) and was informed that I would receive a text message on the day of when my order was 30 minutes out.
Delivery
April 6th arrived, and as promised, I got a text message with an estimated time of arrival of 1:20 PM. Since our new pups are still getting used to people visiting our house, we decided they could enjoy a nice long walk with Xak while I stayed back to accept the delivery.
Since I still had about 30 minutes, I started setting up our table with two teapots (one for Xak’s Assam, and one for my Earl Grey), assembling a three tiered tray for the food, along with two plates (to eat off of), two tea cups with saucers, and some silverware.
Yvonne was the delivery person for that day and I was surprised to see that when I opened the door, she was holding two large boxes and a bag. One of the boxes presented to me was an absolutely stunning sight. It was pink with a clear top, wrapped in a pink ribbon with a Teatopia branded sticker in the top right.
The box contained food that was grouped together with savories on the left and scones in the middle with strawberries and flowers sprinkled throughout.
This box also contained our tea selections marked in separate bags, sugar cubes, little strawberry jams, small plastic containers of lemon curd, and a jar of clotted cream.
In a separate decorative box were three desserts, including two boxes, tea theme printed napkins, and disposable silverware nestled on pink paper with gold bees which just so happened to match my teaset.
The bag contained two heart shaped tea infusers and a tea scoop (add-ons to the Cake Away package), a menu listing out all the included food, a tea menu booklet, oven/air fryer directions on how to properly reheat the scones and sausage rolls, and finally instructions for steeping our selected teas.
Yvonne took the time to explain my order and before she left, we had an excellent conversation about all things tea, including our shared preference for large round scones and sugar cubes (I will die on this hill), local tea rooms we’ve both visited, and how I couldn’t contain my excitement for the sausage rolls.
OMG this is amazing!
-Me in giddy anticipation for our tea party and sausage rolls
When Xak returned, he had the same excited expression on his face. We hurriedly put the pups away for their naps, and worked quickly to reheat the scones and sausage rolls, boil the water, steep our tea, and set up all our food. Although this only took about 15 minutes, we were dying to dive in!
The Food
As it turned out, my one three tiered tray was not enough for all the food and we had to put two of the savories on their own plates and keep one of the desserts in the box. I also wish I had busted out my fancier tablecloth, napkins, and plates, but Xak and I simply could not wait any longer.
Savories
After taking the fastest pictures imaginable, we began with the savories. The savories course is usually my favorite, and I had a feeling I would feel the same way today.
The savories included the following:
- Salmon on cream cheese
- Egg
- Cucumber
- Coronation chicken
- Sausage Rolls (yay)
Salmon Cream Cheese
Philly sushi rolls, which contain salmon and cream cheese, are my favorite. I could seriously eat an entire sushi boat full of these. Xak is not a fan, which is fine with me because it means I get to eat them all myself 😊. Therefore, it’s no surprise that I perk up whenever there’s a salmon cream cheese sandwich on an afternoon tea menu.
These sandwiches had a good amount of salt and the cream cheese had a pleasant herby flavor. It was excellent… but even more surprising was Xak ate not one, but gobbled up two of them. This is a huge deal considering Xak never touches the salmon sandwiches when we visit tea rooms. Now I wonder if I’ll have to fight him off of my Philly rolls in the future. Great start!
egg and Cress
The next sandwich we ate was the egg and cress. This is much more common at tea rooms and also a favorite of ours at home. This particular sandwich was served on a multigrain bread which added some additional flavor and a different texture from soft white bread. This was another tasty sandwich. Although it was less salty than the salmon sandwich, it provided a nice balance of flavor. Our egg and cress triangles quickly disappeared.
Cucumber
The cucumber, aka the quintessential tea sandwich, was next. During my 30+ tea room visits, I can count on one hand how many of these places have served a flavorful cucumber sandwich. Technically, a traditional cucumber sandwich is thinly sliced cucumbers between two slices of buttered white bread. Most places will replace the butter with plain cream cheese. I’ve experienced both types (butter and cream cheese) but my preference at home is cream cheese with a ton of herbs and seasoning.
I’ve come to accept that cucumber sandwiches at tea rooms aren’t going to be served teh same way I make them. However… the Teatopia cucumber sandwich I was eating in my house was good. Very good. I literally wrote in my notes “good!”
This particular sandwich was actually very similar to how I serve them at home. There were flavorful herbs in the cream cheese in every bite and plenty of thinly sliced cucumbers for a little crunch. I was so happy there was more than one in the box.
Coronation Chicken
Next, we moved onto the coronation chicken croissant. Since we had run out of room on the tray, it sat on its own serving plate. It was pretty big: we’re talking almost like a lunch entree sized sandwich. That was exciting for me since this is another sandwich that I really think should be added to more tea room menus.
Coronation chicken was created specifically for Queen Elizabeth the Second’s coronation luncheon. The main difference between coronation chicken and a traditional chicken salad sandwich is the addition of curry powder giving it a distinct yellow appearance. You’ll also typically find sultanas and chutney incorporated in the mix. Trust me, it’s delicious.
The Teatopia coronation chicken sandwich was very tasty and both Xak and I were pleased that it was served on a croissant. Truthfully, we would have been happy even if we were eating it directly out of the mixing bowl!
Sausage Roll
The last savory was the one that Xak was most eager for: the long awaited sausage roll. If you’ve never had a sausage roll before, it’s puff pastry wrapped around ground sausage. It’s like a fancier, flakier version of the American pig in a blanket. Since we had reheated the sausage rolls per the provided instructions, they were warm and crisp and despite all the previous savories we ate before, the sausage rolls disappeared so fast.
Overall, every savory was excellent. I liked that the sandwiches were in different shapes, used different breads, had a lot of color, and that there was a good variety with meat, vegetables, creaminess, and herbs. Most tea rooms tend to offer 3 savories (four if you’re lucky), so I was ecstatic I got to experience five of the flavors. There are more savories you can choose from listed on the site, but I am very happy with the selection I received.
Scones
While the savories course is my favorite, Xak (aka Scone) barely contains himself when we finally get to the scones. Even though we had already consumed quite a bit of food, there is always room for a nice, warm scone.
There were a few noticeable differences that we could already see between the scones served in tea rooms and the scones from Teatopia.
For starters, most tea rooms have served us some pretty petite scones. In some cases, you only get one. The petite scones are usually served alongside a ton of condiments, but there’s never enough scone to actually put it on. At home, Xak usually makes mini scones too but that’s because we know we’ll eat several paired with different jams.
The Teatopia scones were a great size! There were two flavors: plain and lemon blueberry so both Xak and I could have two scones total. Since Xak and I were already fairly full from the sandwiches, we opted to eat just the plain scone during our meal. We had reheated them in our air fryer per the instructions to quickly warm them up.
Included with our order were little jars of Bonne Maman strawberry preserves, lemon curd in plastic condiment containers, and a standard sized jar of clotted cream. One thing that I appreciated was that the amount of condiments provided seemed right for the scone sizes and amount we were given.
Whenever Xak eats scones at tea rooms, he follows a ritual where he’ll rip the scone in half to see how well it separates, checks the bottom of the scone, and then tastes the scone plain without anything on it since condiments can hide a multitude of sins.
While he’s doing his ritual, I usually watch him while eating one side of a cream and jam covered scone.
Today was no exception. Xak started his ritual and was nodding his head in appreciation inspecting the scone (“Nice rise”) before tearing it in half. (“great rip”, he continued ) He flipped it over and I heard him mutter how the bottom was a nice crisp golden brown. He smelled it and nodded, (Pretty sure I heard the word “buttery”) and then he took a small piece to taste.
Once he was done, there was a big smile on his face and he happily piled on clotted cream with preserves on one scone piece and lemon curd on the other.
As he ate the last bite sadly, I watched as he then used his fingers to clean up the crumbs on his plate. Good thing we were at home!
Desserts
At this point, Xak and I decided we should try to restrain ourselves and hold off on dessert.
Just kidding.
The desserts (sourced from local patisseries) included the following:
- Opera Cake
- Pavlovas
- Macarons (4 flavors)
Opera Cake
If you like coffee and chocolate, you’re going to love opera cake. The name comes from a resemblance to an opera house. I’ve had opera cake at afternoon tea before (Ritz Carlton), but it’s not something I commonly see on menus.
This opera cake was a tea time appropriate size but still contained the distinctive layers of almond sponge, coffee buttercream, and chocolate ganache topped with gold leaf. The sponge layers are typically soaked in a coffee syrup, meaning much softer and wetter than a normal cake or petit four. Since the soaked layers are exposed, this can be messy to eat with your fingers so I ate the opera cake off of the included pastry wrapper. Yummy!
Pavlovas
The two boxes within the second decorative box contained rather large pavlovas sitting on top of thin white disks.
Xak and I have made mini pavlovas for tea before with airy homemade whipped cream and topped with fresh fruit. This pavlova had a heavier cream and was filled with fruit jam which stuck to the white disk. I like fruit jam, but I think i prefer pavlovas with fresh fruit.
Macarons
Macarons are commonly served at tea rooms. They’re a good choice because they not only come in a variety of flavors, they also look extremely pretty! The macarons were almond, salted caramel, pistachio, and rose.
Xak and I did our macaron ritual of splitting them evenly so we had a bite of each flavor. As aspiring macaron bakers ourselves, Xak especially admired the macaron feet and the amount of filling between each delicate cookie. I’m not the biggest fan of floral flavors, but overall I thought the macarons were delightful, very tasty, and a good selection of flavors (even the rose).
Final Thoughts
When we were finished with the last macaron, both Xak and I were extremely full, but also extremely pleased and satisfied.
I absolutely loved that I got to stay at home wearing my pajamas and fuzzy socks, pop on my Downton Abbey soundtrack, and have an excellent afternoon tea without having to dirty a mixing bowl.
In addition to the quality of the food, what really stood out to me was the presentation. It really felt like we were having a very special meal due to the great care and consideration given to the packaging and details. For example, the strawberries that were sprinkled throughout both boxes added a nice pop of color but they were also very fresh, sweet, and we ate every single one between each course.
While Xak and I will still continue to plan ambitious afternoon teas (hello kouign amann), we can’t wait for our next Teatopia catered tea party for the days we’re too tired to lift a rolling pin.
Thank you so much Yvonne for sharing Teatopia with us. It was delicious and we wish you much success with your business!
Bonus: The Lomnava Garden
In addition to being afternoon tea lovers, Xak and I love flowers and gardens. We’ve visited several gardens together including getting married at a botanical garden. Unfortunately, I am not the best gardener (much to my mother’s dismay), which is why we strongly appreciate those that excel at this art.
Yvonne is one of these people. As a Master Gardener, she is the owner and the caretaker of Lomnava, her private 1.7 acre garden full of 250+ roses and much more.
In May, Yvonne let me know that the Lomnava garden was open to the public through the Garden Conservancy Open Days program. Xak and I excitedly purchased our tickets and crossed our fingers for good weather.
Although I had seen pictures online, I was in awe at the beauty and serenity you can only experience in person. The garden is carefully laid out, including various water features, benches, and sculptures. There is so much to look at and appreciate and my terrible photography skills do not do this place justice!
If you get the chance, you really have to see it yourself. What an incredible place!
